A Case for the Redemptive Eve

Abstract

It took me a long time to decide to write this thesis. More than seventeen years as a "good" daughter, more than thirty years as a "good" wife, and almost ten years of changing. My present status is that of a "changing woman": changing into a liberated person -- not afraid of taking a chance, not afraid to make a mistake, not afraid to make people dislike her. Even though I grew up with images of liberated women: Jane Addams, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Josephine Roche -- I never applied the images to myself. The moment I began to change was very recent. It was the day a sheet of paper crossed my desk: Executive Order 11375, amending Executive Order 11246, explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in the Federal Government. In my inner soul I had known for years that I was being discriminated against, but to have the government actually agree! I was filled with questions: How were women in other countries faring? What were they doing and saying? Were we all in it together and could we all be liberated together?